Skolimowski's previous films all maintained a brittle tension between romanticism and cynicism, principally through the person of a questing, usually adolescent, hero unable—despite a succession of experiences revealing both the egotism and the utter separateness of other people—to suppress his expectation of a better world. They were at once a celebration of youthful energy and of a more mature disenchantment, alternately detached and wryly compassionate, with the director controlling the ebb and flow of audience sympathies as if the better to convince us of the absurdity of sharing his affection for his unreliable characters.

To this extent his hilarious Deep End runs true to form, while being—superficially—the most superficial of Skolimowski's films to date. (p. 16)

The ending is thematically consistent with Skolimowski's pervasive view of a greedy society in which people use and discard other people like objects and sex is equated with materialism…. Yet it is unsatisfying, not just because of its crude shock tactics but also because it echoes two of the film's clumsiest moments: a fantasy insert in which Mike holds Susan naked under the water, and a longer sequence in which he floats on top of a cardboard poster of a stripper who resembles her. These scenes seem intended to provide a single image of adolescent frustration, and their weakness lies in their explicitness, while Skolimowski's strength lies elsewhere: in ambiguous metaphors rather than precise similes, in mobile rather than static images, in surreal inconsequential details…. As long as it cuts rapidly from scene to scene Deep End sustains its momentum; but it is knocked off balance each time Skolimowski attempts to round off a sequence with a wilfully significant image.

Yet between these heavy parentheses the film contains so much that is dazzlingly brilliant that it seems uncharitable to dwell on them. It is a kaleidoscope of primary colours, used to tip both characters and settings into the realm of caricature, but also used for the sheer visual pleasure they offer, as Skolimowski seems self-parodyingly to acknowledge when … a roller-wielding hand appears in the background and proceeds to cover a wall with red paint. (pp. 16-17)

The many sudden, unexplained shifts of purpose and attitude show Skolimowski at his distinctive best…. [Yet] despite the verbal and visual fireworks, the film's mixture of slapstick, caricature and grim moral comment does not always coalesce; with a pop score by Cat Stevens and a frenetically running hero, it seems intermittently to be exploiting the swinging genre on which it so caustically comments. Like the best baroque, it is memorable for a wealth of details and its depiction of a turbulent world in a state of perpetual motion; but being the best baroque, it fits uneasily into a linear structure with a beginning, middle and end, to say nothing of a moral. (p. 17)